


Professor

by spoilersweetie



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-19
Updated: 2014-08-19
Packaged: 2018-02-13 20:28:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2164143
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spoilersweetie/pseuds/spoilersweetie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As he sits at the back of the lecture hall and watches his wife carefully, it quickly becomes apparent to the Doctor that this River is quite a few years younger than the one he’d been aiming for - and she clearly hadn’t been teaching long. At all. In fact, he thinks this River may only be in the first few weeks of her new job - and apparently, it takes her a while to become the cool and collected woman at the front of her class the Doctor knows.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Professor

Luna University. The Doctor steps out of the Tardis, closing the door behind him and tugs on his lapels, pleased he’d made it where he intended - not that he’d ever admit that it was still a surprise whenever that happened. There are students milling about which means he is a little earlier than planned and River is probably still in class but no matter - he always enjoys sitting in on her lectures. Dinner reservations can wait; he does have a time machine after all.

Knowing the corridors well, the Doctor strides towards River’s lecture hall, peeking in through the glass panel in the door at the back of the room to find that yes, his wife was in place at the front of the class. He slips in and takes a seat at the back, surprised when River doesn’t notice his presence - he’d tried to be discreet and none of the students had noticed him enter either, but not much usually got by River... she seems distracted though, standing at the front of her class and talking animatedly with a frown on her face, gesturing irritably with her hands. She looks stressed.

As he sits at the back and watches his wife carefully, it quickly becomes apparent to the Doctor that this River is quite a few years younger than the one he’d been aiming for - and she clearly hadn’t been teaching long. At all. In fact, he thinks this River may only be in the first few weeks of her new job - and apparently, it takes her a while to become the cool and collected woman at the front of her class the Doctor knows. His lips curl slowly upwards into a smile as he watches her in fascination, tuning in to what she is saying.

“So - why did the Krotans invade Paxillon in the first place? What did they want that can only be found there? Who knows?”

Nobody raises their hands.

“Seriously - come on - anybody?”

A boy in the front row nervously sticks up his hand.

“Yes, you?”

“...Gold?”

“What?” River demands. “I said _can only be found there - gold!?_ Are you three years old? Did you even pass pre-school - ugh - get out! Go and find a brain before you return to my class.” She snaps, and red-faced, the boy scrambles out of the row and scurries from the room as the Doctor watches with raised eyebrows.

“Right, come on, someone must know?” Silence. She huffs. “It’s a precious stone - see, I’m even giving you a hint, what stone can only be found on Paxillion?”

Another boy raises his hand.

“Ah - yes?”

“Um, is it rimmalin stones?”

River blinks at him. “Seriously? Is that a serious answer?”

“Uh -”

“Do you actually expect to graduate this course?” She huffs and slams the textbook down on her desk. “Bloody hell! Does anybody know the answer? This is _basic knowledge_  - does anybody in this room even have half a brain cell?”

The clock ticking on the wall is the only sound that fills the hall after her words, the students sitting rigid and slightly terrified in their seats. River runs a stressed hand through her curls, and the Doctor sees her lips move and recognises the string of curses she is muttering in gallifreyan. She looks absolutely at the end of her tether and he decides to help her out a bit and raises his hand.

Her eyes snap up to his and widen in surprise, then immediately soften and crinkle with happy recognition and something akin to relief. She quickly hides the smile that comes her her lips and clears her throat. “Er - yes, in the back row?”

“Tiagon stones,” The Doctor says. “Orange in colour, smooth and flat, most valuable stone this side of the galaxy - worth about four hundred and sixty three times the amount of an earth diamond of the same weight. I think.” He adds on the end and grins cheekily.

River smiles. “You think right - thank you, I’m glad somebody in this room has an ounce of intelligence.

The Doctor shrugs. “Lucky guess.”

He just sees River roll her eyes as she turns to the board behind her to hide her smile.

“Now,” She says as she picks up the control next to the board and presses a button so a picture fills the screen. She talks for a little while, seemingly having abandoned asking questions in favour of simply telling her class everything, skimming quickly through the facts as the students tap away manically on their notepads in attempts to keep up. “Something else was found down in the caves when they were excavated in four-thousand-and-nineteen - chests and chests filled with these.” She changes the screen and picture of a gun fills the screen.

A boy raises his hand and River points to him.

“Is that a plasma blaster?”

She shakes her head. “No, similar - but it doesn’t have the extra setting and the barrel is rounder - wait...” Propping her foot up on her chair, River lifts her skirt and extracts the gun tucked into the holster round her thigh. The Doctor resists the urge to slap a palm to his forehead as his wife drops her leg and faces the class, holding it up for them to see. “This is plasma blaster,” she informs them. “See the clip on the side? And notice the difference in shape of the two?”

The class simply gapes at her. One boy in the middle row is finally brave enough to raise a shaky hand.

“Yes?”

“Is that, uh… real?”

River rolls her eyes. “Of course it’s real, why would I be carrying a fake fun around with me?”

A girl in the front row speaks up. “Why are you carrying around a real gun?”

River’s eyes gleam and a smile comes to her lips. “So,” she says. “All see the difference?”

The class mutely nod. The boy in the middle row raises his hand again.

“Yes?”

“Why couldn’t we see it?”

“What?”

“That gun.” He motions to her leg, her pencil skirt hugging her thighs tightly.

“Perception filter.” She glances around at their wide eyes. “Any more questions? Yes, you?”

“Can I touch it?”

“No. So, shall we move on?” River props her foor back up and hitches her skirt up to slide the gun snugly back into it’s holster. The Doctor is certain he _hears_ the moment most of her class develop a huge crush on their professor - in a slightly-terrified-of-her, completely-intimidated way. They sit in silence, staring at her raptly, and the Doctor sits in the back row feeling more smug than ever.

“How many chests were discovered?” She addresses her class. “And if not one of you know the answer to this I swear I’m going to make you all write lines for the remainder of the lesson…”

They hadn’t known the answer, and River did indeed make them all spend the lecture writing lines. When one boy complained that it was a teaching method that had been abandoned five-thousand years ago - for good reason - River had made him stand in the corner and told him he’d be writing double the amount of lines for homework.

At the end of the class she assigns three times the amount of reading the Doctor was sure their slow human brains could achieve in a week, and then doubles it when someone dares to speak up, threatens them all with expulsion if they didn’t complete it and tells them to get out of her sight.

He waits until the last boy scampers from the room - when she finally remembers to tell him he can leave the corner - and then stands as the door closes behind them to make his way down the steps towards River at the front of the hall. Tossing her notepad onto the desk, his wife turns to him with a heavy sigh and a weak smile.

“Hello sweetie,” she says, and it is now that he is close to her he can see how exhausted she looks.

“Well that was… interesting,” he grins at her, eyebrows raised.

She huffs out a laugh, rolling her eyes. “Oh shut up and give me a kiss.”

He steps in close, planting a kiss on her lips before pulling back, hands on her hips. “River,” he grins as he backs her into her desk.

She tilts her chin up towards him. “Yes?”

Reaching up, he tucks a curl behind her ear. “You’re a terrible professor.”

She laughs but shoves at him. “Shut up! I’d like to see you do better sweetie. Those kids are an insolent bunch of terrors.”

He raises his eyebrows. “They seemed pretty well behaved to me.”

“You should have seen them the first week,” she argues, “It took putting the fear of god into them to get them to shut up and listen to me - and now I don’t know whether the entire bunch of them are really that stupid of they’re just pretending in order to wind me up.”

He laughs. “They’re not exactly kids River - do you realise this is university and not school? Maybe treating them like five year olds is the problem,” he teases.

“Well they’re kids to me - do you know how old I am? - Actually, forget that, I don’t want you to know how old I am. And anyway, I don’t treat them like five year olds!”

“River, you made a man in his late twenties stand in the corner for thirty-five minutes.”

“Well, he was being rude,” she bristles.

“I’m sure he won’t do it again.”

“He better not.”

The Doctor chuckles and leans in to place a kiss on her cheek, and feels River sigh heavily and slump a little in his arms.

“Really Doctor,” she sighs. “I don’t think I’ve got this thing figured out,” she admits as she fiddles with his bowtie. “I mean, I know I am a professor, because you told me -”

“Ah, yes,” he rubs the back of his neck. “One of my first slip-ups if I remember rightly.”

She nods. “But…” She lets out another sigh. “I don’t feel like I should be… if you know what I mean.” She looks up at him and shakes her head. “You’ve seen me with those kids, I don’t know what I’m doing - I feel like I’d rather shoot them than teach them half the time. And they don’t listen to me - they don’t seem to be learning anything - I’m terrible at this teaching thing, really, and I -”

“River, River,” he stops her, tucking curls behind her ear and stroking her frowning face. She leans into the touch and he is reminded how much he loves it when they are both this far along in their timelines - affection is easy and comfortable between them, and River isn’t afraid to let her guard down around him - which means more to him than he could ever explain. He gives her a reassuring smile. “Stop doubting yourself. You’ll work it out - I promise.”

She raises her eyebrows teasingly. “Isn’t that spoilers?”

He grins and taps her on the nose. “Just a little one, professor.”

“Ooh, I like that,” she purrs, grinning, and the Doctor smirks right back.

“Oh I know you do.”

Her eyes light up at that. “Really?”

He nods, eyes darting to her mouth as she licks her lips. “I’ll give you one more little spoiler.”

River leans in, her breath warm on his lips. “What?” She says.

Smirking at her, the Doctor spins her in his arms suddenly, and presses her hips into the edge of her desk with his own, delighting in her sharp inhalation of breath. With one hand holding her against him, he takes her own in his other and presses it to her desk, leaning against her and bending her forwards a little as he nudges her curls aside with his nose and brings his lips to her ear.

“In the future there’s going to be four scratch marks on your desk,” he whispers, his hand covering her own, dragging it slowly across the wood. “Right… here…”

Her fingers curl into the smooth wooden surface and her breath hitches in her throat, before she lets out a soft moan.

“Well sweetie,” she breathes, “No time like the present…”

The Doctor grins against her neck. “Whatever you say professor.”

River’s laugh is cut short by his hips pressing against hers from behind, his tongue dragging along her neck and hand snaking beneath her shirt…

The next morning, she surreptitiously places a pile of books over the four marks on her desk when her students file in, and smirks every time she thinks of them.


End file.
